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See Part One for warnings.
When they were back in their cell, locked in by a scowling, silent guard, Jim began undressing, getting ready for bed, his movements methodical and controlled, almost in slow motion as if it was the only way he could keep his hands from shaking. Blair started to shiver, Jim's control robbing him of his own, teeth-chattering shudders that racked his body. Jim tossed his T-shirt aside and came close at once, his expression concerned, his arms reaching out to encircle him, hug him, but Blair warded him off with a snarl. "Don't fucking touch me!"
Jim held up his hands and stepped back, his face impassive now, his body tense. "Fine. No touching."
"Ever again," Blair said, biting the words out and trying not to bite his tongue at the same time. The air in the cell was sun-baked and stifling even this late at night, but he couldn't get warm.
Jim's skepticism about Blair's resolve came over loud and clear, but Blair ignored it, wrapping a blanket from his bed around him and pacing the cell as Jim gave him room.
"Why did you do it?" Blair asked eventually into the heavy, waiting silence. "Why did you do that to me?"
Jim ran his hand over his head and grimaced. "Look, we can talk if you like, but can you just -- can you let me hold you -- get the stink of him off you? Please? It's driving me crazy."
"What?" Blair gaped at him. "Everything that's just happened and you're getting pissy over the way I smell?"
The skin around Jim's mouth was white. "Yes. I'm not feeling very…stable right now and you're not helping." Blue eyes seared Blair, almost making him feel some heat. "You're supposed to help me, Chief."
"My name is Blair," Blair snapped. "Keep the pet names for when you're passing me around like a bottle of cheap booze."
Jim blinked, some of the tension visibly leaving him as his clenched jaw relaxed. "A nickname? That bugs you? You pick the strangest things to get mad about…"
Blair choked on hysterical laughter. "You think so? Want to know what's really gotten me mad?"
"No. I want to stop you shaking. I want to hold you. I want you naked and in my bed and I want to --"
"Fuck!" Blair whirled and slammed his palm against the cell wall, the impact jarring, the pain clean and his to own. "You want, your bed -- what about me? Huh? When do I get to have what I want? When do I get a say in where I sleep and who with?"
Jim materialized beside him and Blair let his hurt hand be taken, cradled against Jim's chest, because he'd gotten a glimpse of Jim's eyes and, yeah, the man was closer to the edge than Blair was, which was saying something.
"I stopped myself from killing a man I despise because you asked me to let him live," Jim said softly. "You had a say then. Now, it's my turn. I'm not going to force you to do anything, but I need your help here and if you want me on my knees begging for it --"
Nice picture -- in a nightmare world. Blair had once seen Sentinels as special; golden men, larger than life. They didn't kneel and beg; they protected people. Meeting one had taken the shine off his idealized picture and dirtied it up some, but if he were honest, he'd admit that his first thoughts hadn't been all that realistic. "Would you?"
"For you?" Jim nodded slowly. "Yeah. I would. I might have limits when it comes to what I'd do to keep you, but I don't know where they lie and I don't really want to find out. Put it this way; I'd endure everything you went through with King -- more -- just to stay close to you, yeah, even if it was you dishing it out, and never regret it, not once."
"I'd never ask you to do that," Blair whispered, his voice stripped of strength. Jim meant it, every word. Blair wasn't sure how he knew that, but he did. "I couldn't be like that with you. With anyone."
"I know," Jim murmured back, the quiet words creating a safe, private place for the two of them. He raised Blair's hand to his lips and kissed it, an unhurried, tender kiss that hurt more than hitting the wall had, because Blair couldn't block out kindness the way he had blocked out King's abuse. "This is good. This helps. Thank you."
"I swore you'd never touch me again," Blair said. Jim smiled and kissed Blair's wrist, just where the blood beat against the thin skin. "I wanted to kill you. Geld you."
Jim sucked in air and shook his head, still smiling. "Believe me, you'd have more fun with me intact."
Anger was slipping away from Blair like a dream at daybreak. "Are we ever going to have arguments that I can win?" he asked plaintively.
"You can win them all," Jim said. "I'll teach you every weakness I have."
"Right," Blair said, mirroring Jim's earlier skepticism. "Somehow I doubt that."
"I've got things to tell you,." Jim said. "We've got a lot to talk about -- starting with the way you hesitated when I told you to get your ass over to me." The smile had disappeared now; Jim looked annoyed.
"Hey!" Blair yanked his hand free and poked Jim's chest. "How about the way you made me -- when you said I'd never have to -- the way you --" Tears choked him suddenly, salt and snot running down the back of his throat as he sniffed hard and fuck it, he was shaking again. "I crawled --"
"Come here." Jim's chest made a crappy pillow. Too hard and the tears ran off it, but it was warm and smelled comfortingly familiar, which made no sense as Blair hadn't had time to get used to Jim yet. "I had to watch you do it. I know."
"Going to thank me for that, too?"
"No. That was you working with me. It's what we're supposed to do."
Blair shifted his head an inch to the left and set his teeth around one of Jim's nipples, catching at it roughly and making Jim yelp. "Fuck that."
"Blair --" The warning in Jim's voice was tinged with desperation. "I'm not in control right now after that fight and seeing you -- Don't --"
The lights went out with an abruptness Blair had never gotten used to, plunging them -- no, just him, he supposed -- into a darkness that would lift within a few minutes when his eyes adjusted, as the prison was never completely dark.
Jim's nipple was hard to bite; too much muscle around it. Blair moved up, licking fiercely at Jim's throat and then kissing it, a sucking bite of a kiss any vampire would be proud of. Jim groaned something that might have been a protest but sounded a lot like 'please'.
"Killer," Blair said, planting the words into the spit-slippery skin with a flick of his tongue. "Right?"
"I'd kill for you."
"Hard man," Blair continued, his hand going down, a lewd, low chuckle making it clear just what he meant, even before his fingers sought out the stiff poke of Jim's cock and freed it from his shorts. The shorts ended up on the floor a moment later, and then Jim was naked and Blair was clothed, the blanket slipping from his shoulders to pool on the floor.
"Hard for you," Jim murmured back at him, the words husky, thick, a growl. His hands made restless passes over Blair's back and ass, petting Blair roughly with a hungry urgency, trying to get to skin. Yeah, he really was close to losing it, wasn't he? Blair didn't care and he wasn't scared. He'd come too close to dying tonight to care about anything less than death and pushing Jim like this was about the only weapon he had. He wanted to make Jim break and be there to pick up the pieces. He needed to see Jim lose it, lose it all. His emotions and thoughts were chaotic, confused, but things had to balance between them. Jim had made him crawl and suck and smile at a face Blair hated and Blair didn't give a fuck that it'd saved them both when it had come so close to destroying him.
"Sentinel," Blair said as his fingers tightened around solid, hot flesh.
Jim was silent now. Quivering, rock-hard, yes, but silent.
"My Sentinel," Blair said finally, experimentally, wondering -- and felt the warm gush of come flow up and spurt out a moment later, the smell of it pungent and familiar, arousing Blair to the point where he had to bite down hard on his lip to keep himself from following suit.
"God," Jim moaned, and swayed, held in place by Blair's hands, his own gripping Blair's shoulders painfully tight. "God, Blair --"
Instinct took over, erasing Blair's shock that Jim had climaxed that fast. He hadn't done anything; just touched him, just --
Claimed him.
Oh, fuck. Blair rested his head against Jim's shoulder and then pulled Jim closer, heedless of come-spattered hands and clothing. Jim clung to him with bone-cracking strength and nuzzled Blair's neck, muttering something that Blair didn't try to decipher because he knew what it meant, no matter what language Jim used.
Yours.
***
Jim breathed in the welcome scent of his come, simple, known, and the roil of emotions pouring off Blair, which were less easy to identify but a huge improvement on the sour, filthy reek King had left smeared over Blair. Blair's anger and upset weren't pleasant -- Jim experienced them as an itch, a nagging sense of wrongness -- but there was nothing about Blair that Jim couldn't tolerate, nothing that could make him feel distaste or revulsion. Blair was too close for that to be possible; part of Jim, his flaws, weaknesses, all accepted without thought.
It was a difficult truth to grasp; Incacha had been patient with Jim's inability to accept it for many weeks before rolling his eyes and telling Jim bluntly that as far as he was concerned, Jim's shit didn't stink and he could go without bathing for weeks and still be welcome in Incacha's bed.
That acceptance went deeper than the physical, of course, but it got the message across, and Jim had eventually stopped worrying that Incacha endured what they did together in bed rather than enjoyed it, or resented the upheaval of his life and, by extension, Jim. It just didn't work like that; they were one at levels that went beyond any partnership Jim had ever experienced or observed.
Losing Incacha had left him like a bombed building, his strength and purpose shattered until all that remained was a jumbled heap of bricks that had once meant something.
Finding Blair was a chance at rebirth; Jim had lost too much to ever become the man Incacha had known again, but he could still become something new, fill the empty loneliness inside him with something other than self-loathing and apathy.
He understood all of Blair's misgivings and doubts, all of his anger. He doubted that he could be as patient with Blair as Incacha had been with him, but he could try…
His climax had slammed into him like a fist and held as much pain as pleasure because it fell so short of what he remembered it could be, but it had done its job and washed away some of the red from his vision. Holding Blair helped even more because he was aroused and that was distracting him from the questions Jim frankly didn't have time for right then. He wanted to make Blair come and then sleep with him.
It didn't seem like much to ask.
He weighed what he guessed Blair would want against a handful of practicalities and shrugged mentally. No condoms, no lube. The second didn't matter -- it might tomorrow, but right then the discomfort was a small price to pay for having Blair inside him. The first…well, he knew he was clean and if King had been careful, Blair was, too.
"Fuck me?" he asked, the words spoken into the damp tickle of Blair's hair. "Or let me suck you?"
Blair's body jerked, stiffening in shock. Jim felt his confusion without really understanding it; it wasn't that complicated a proposition, after all.
"What?"
"You heard me." Jim worked his way through the tangle of hair to Blair's ear and bit at the lobe, using a lot less force than Blair had used chewing on his nipple. Not that Jim had minded; the one time, curious, he'd let a girlfriend put clamps on his nipples he'd gone wild, loving the sharp, concentrated savagery of the pain and the lingering throb. He'd never tried them again, though; he'd shipped out to Peru right after and though Incacha had been willing to try just about anything Jim could dream up, he wasn't into damaging his Sentinel just so said Sentinel could get his rocks off and Jim had respected that.
Something told Jim that Blair wouldn't have quite as many scruples.
"Oh, man, you really don't want me doing that," Blair told him, his voice strained. "It's been a while -- years -- and I've learned a lot of bad habits. I could hurt you."
"I don't think so." Jim mapped the size of Blair's erection with a casually appreciative sweep of his fingers. Nice. "Though I'll be aching tomorrow if you really go to town, but I can take it."
"Ever been fucked dry and hard?" Blair said sourly. "Trust me, it won't be just tomorrow it hurts."
"Then let me blow you," Jim said, striving for patience. He wanted to seal the deal and the more Blair talked, the less horny he smelled.
Blair stepped back, shrugging out of Jim's grasp. "I don't know what you're trying to prove --"
Patience exhausted, Jim shoved Blair up against the wall beside them and dropped to his knees, crowding close and getting his mouth over the swell of Blair's cock. He bit at it through Blair's jeans, the open-mouthed bite a mother cat uses on a kitten's neck, and tasted his own come soaked into the fabric.
Then he knelt back, his hands on the wall on either side of Blair and looked up.
"Get your dick out," he suggested, his tongue flicking over his lips to both catch the acrid tang left there and get Blair's imagination revved up.
"Man, you're pushy," Blair muttered, his hands already busy. "Fine. Blow me. But you bite me and you lose teeth."
Jim cupped the tightening pouch of Blair's balls and jiggled them. "Guess you grew a pair."
That got him Blair's hands in his hair, painfully tight, and a rammed-in mouthful of cock a moment later. He choked, eyes watering, throat convulsing, and Blair eased back. "You're not very good at this, are you?"
Jim swiped at his drooling mouth and glared up at him. "I've never had any complaints, but most people use a little more --"
"Finesse?" Blair suggested tiredly. "Sorry. I'm used to getting my mouth fucked and like I said; bad habits."
"You want to make me take what you did? Go ahead. Hurt me. Use me. Bruise me, mark me; I don't care. If it helps you, take it all out on me."
"Oh God, don't! Don't let me go there --" Blair let go of Jim's hair and tried to push past him, but Jim blocked the attempt, caging Blair with his arms.
"Or let me show you how good it can be between us," he said with all the persuasion he could muster. He stropped his cheek caressingly against the shaft of Blair's cock, a hum of arousal thrumming in his throat. "Driving me crazy here, babe." He didn't talk much during sex usually, but Blair was pulling the words out of him, a litany of longing. "Let me suck you," he said and knew that he was begging, the way a man dying of thirst would plead for a sip of water. "I can take you deep; I wasn't ready, that's all. Come as fast as I did or let me make this last; your choice. Come in my mouth, on my face, I don't give a fuck, just let me do this for you." He paused, his breathing labored, his chest tight with need. "Please," he said softly. "Please, Blair."
This time, the hand cupped his head and drew him forward slowly. He closed his eyes to hold back the sting of tears it would have killed him to shed and licked the glossed-over head of Blair's cock, savoring the intimacy as much as the taste.
He heard Blair exhale, a soft rush of air that Jim felt against his face like the memory of a touch, and then he turned his attention to making Blair come his fucking brains out.
He wasn't sure he succeeded but it was good enough that he got an exhausted Blair curled up beside him for a few hours that night, even if he woke to find himself sleeping alone, his arm curved over an empty space.
It was enough. It was a start.
***
King was gone within the week, transferred away, a cracked eggshell of a man, his eyes blank and dazed. Blair wasn't sure how he felt about that. As revenge went, it was unsatisfying; King had lost his power and influence in a single crowded hour -- as well as his brother and the use of his hand for several months -- but it hadn't made Blair feel better.
Jim methodically beating seven shades of shit out of the two men who tried to take over King's position and assumed Blair came with the job made him feel resentfully safer, though.
He wanted to take care of himself; to start over and this time do it right, but that just wasn't an option now.
Sentinels didn't share, Sentinels didn't let their backups defend themselves, and Sentinels, apparently, were happy to provide blow jobs on demand or let their bodies be used as a great place to rub off on without ever asking for anything in return.
Oh, Jim came; came every time, with a gasped out grunt of pleasure that made Blair's balls tighten with lust, but Blair never touched him; he didn't need to. All Jim needed was for Blair to be there, close, preferably naked, and horny.
Blair felt like a centerfold.
He could have ended it with a touch because he knew damn well that it wasn't the way Jim wanted it, but a residual stubbornness and the annoyance he felt over Jim's smothering protectiveness kept him from giving in the whole way.
He'd been forced to accept the connection between them -- he wasn't sure how or when -- or why -- but he had, and he let Jim suck him off because the guy really liked doing it and Blair…didn't hate it, but he was damned if he was going to step into a dead man's shoes and be the love of Ellison's life.
Two years, three, and he was gone. Until then, Jim would be useful and, yeah, an improvement on King, Blair would admit that.
A month of never being touched unless he permitted it, a month of his own bunk to sprawl out on -- and he knew Jim hated him leaving his bunk, but God, sleeping alone was heaven and if he sometimes woke and missed the solid heat of Jim's body, well…
He remembered that he had a library book to return and ten minutes to do it in and headed back for his cell, his ass unpatted in the corridor, no whispered insults following him. Oh, brave new world…
The cell door was pushed closed, which it shouldn’t have been at this time of day. His steps slowed, dread rising to crowd his throat with sickness. King had closed the door like that when he couldn't wait for the night, shut it in the face of the world with an unthinking arrogance.
He shook himself. He wasn't behind that door, naked, shivering, hurt; he was out here, and if Jim was fighting off an attack -- unlikely because there wasn't much dislike of him, overt or covert, even from King's former friends -- he was doing it in total silence which was even less likely.
It took him three hesitant steps toward the door to think of another possibility; Jim was behind that door getting his rocks off with one of the many men who'd offered to take Blair's place.
Jealousy and sheer, raw-red possessiveness gripped and shook him, left his ears ringing and his heart pounding unsteadily. He could still hear, with a small part of him, that detached voice that King had never silenced, note dispassionately that claiming went both ways and that if this was how Jim had felt that night in the showers, King was the luckiest man alive to still be breathing, but mostly he just thought, 'mine!' with a savage simplicity.
He was saved from humiliating himself completely with a dramatic entrance through the door, fists flying, by the door opening and Brackett sauntering out, a satisfied smile broadening when he saw Blair.
Brackett opened his mouth to say something predictable and then visibly reconsidered, turned on his heel and walked away, moving just a little too quickly. Blair stared at his retreating back, nodded to himself the way a man did, job done, the movement taking an eternity to complete, and then walked into his cell.
Jim was sitting on the lower bunk, rinsing his mouth from a bottle of water Brackett must have left behind -- it was Evian -- and spitting into a metal mug. Red spit, blood drooling from a cut lip, but that wasn't all that was clouding the water. He glanced at Blair, but didn't speak.
"How many times?" Blair asked, his voice a tinny echo of the scream in his head.
Jim shrugged. "Who's counting? When he wants it, I deliver and take the consequences if he thinks he's given up too much." His gaze was direct but there was no accusation in it, just a weary resignation. "This time, I was trying too hard to make him forget that he enjoyed both of us at once."
"Because you don't share." It came out like an accusation, a flung stone.
"Because you wouldn't like it," Jim corrected him.
"Stop being so fucking noble!" Blair stalked across the room and snatched the mug from Jim's hand, sending it flying across the room, liquid splattering the floor and wall, the clang of metal on stone jarringly loud. Jim placed the bottle on the floor before Blair could grab that, too, and stood up, anger replacing apathy .
"It's not noble, it's what I am, you fucking moron." Jim stabbed his fingers against his chest. "Sentinel. Sentinel. You were going to look for one and you don't have a clue, you don't have a fucking clue what we are and what we can do, you know that?"
"Yes, I do," Blair said, stung and remembering the hours he'd spent reading that fucking book, memorizing it in places. He'd slept with it some nights, dammit. "Your senses are enhanced --"
"Yeah, they're enhanced." Jim's mouth folded in a grim, set line and he nodded his head jerkily. "Do you know by how much? How far I can see, how much I can zoom in on something? I can count the fuzz on a bee's ass from the other side of a football field if it stays still long enough; I can hear the warden talking to his dead son in his sleep if I try, and I can smell Carter's rancid fucking socks from here, and he's in D wing."
Blair swallowed, guilt flooding him. God, Jim was right on this count, at least; he had a Sentinel to study, a willing subject, right here, not in Peru, but in his cell, and what had he done about it? Not a damn thing. Not a single note made, or a test planned. Parameters. Variables. Limits. He'd done nothing.
And Jim had been quietly servicing Brackett to keep him off Blair's back and waiting for Blair to snap out of one monumental sulk…
He wanted to do something to make up for his neglect of his dream and, yeah, his Sentinel, he supposed, but he couldn't think of anything that would come close to being enough. Jim made it all a thousand times worse by taking a bottle of lube out of his pocket and tossing it over. Blair caught it automatically. New, the seal unbroken.
"Got it from Brackett," Jim said. "Better than flowers. Now you can fuck me. I know you want to." His lips twisted. "Guess my blow jobs aren't as good as I thought they were, but maybe you'll like my ass better."
Blair narrowed his eyes. "Don't push it," he said. "I'm feeling guilty as hell here, but if the way I come whimpering isn't enough of a hint that you're good on your knees, then I don't know what is."
Jim grunted, clearly not pacified. "Took you long enough to admit you like it."
A strained silence fell with Jim's mouth -- beautiful, that mouth, clear-cut, generous -- looking close to pouting, except that was something else Sentinels didn't do.
Okay, this was going to take something more than an apology…and when in doubt, attack.
"And as for the Sentinel thing…" Blair said, as if Jim's rant had only just been spoken.
"Yeah?"
"Everyone can smell Carter's socks," Blair said dismissively -- and waited, hoping that Jim would get it, would see the expectancy in his eyes, would play along.
One beat, two, and then Jim grinned and reached out to ruffle Blair's hair forgivingly.
Asshole. Blair tucked the lube in his pocket, a small weight, promising, tempting.
"Maybe you can fuck me," he said without thinking.
"You won't kiss me, won't touch me, won't treat me like I'm human, but you'll bend over for me?" Jim patted Blair's cheek and walked toward the door. "Chief, you're one messed up man. No."
Blair pursed his lips. So that was what Jim wanted? Well…okay.
A kiss. He could do that.
He turned his head and found himself alone, but that didn't matter, did it? Jim could hear him.
Softly, barely breathing the words, he said, "I'll kiss you. I'll touch you. Tonight."
The last word echoed, as if Jim had said it back to him.
***
"Tell me," Jim panted, driving into Blair's ass at just the perfect angle, just the perfect speed.
Blair moaned, luxurious, wanton, and raked his nails down Jim's back. He'd already left teeth marks and bruises scattered over Jim's body, but it wasn't enough. He wanted Jim marked for days, something to look at, something to touch as he jerked off.
"I'll wait. I'll wait for you -- Jim, God, Jim, now, now, now."
"You're still talking," Jim said and nipped at Blair's ear. Blair wasn't the only one who was leaving marks tonight. Their last night. "I want you past that before I let you come."
"Fuck you." His body was a twisted, snarled up knot of lust only a climax would unravel. Hours of this… Freezing when the guards had walked by, keeping their voices down… Hours of Jim mapping his body with meticulous, desperate care, as if the years together had been wiped away and he was starting over -- "Please, Jim. Please --"
"Tell me."
Blair shook his head in frustration, not denial. "I'll wait, I’ll wait," he chanted breathlessly. "Jim -- believe me, okay?"
"I want to," Jim said, the words muffled against Blair's hair. "You don't know what it's going to be like tomorrow watching you walk out of here. Going where I can't see you, hear you, touch you --"
"Shush, just -- don't. And yeah, I do."
Jim thrust inside him again, the joy gone, and Blair slid his hands down to still the next mechanical rock forward. His arousal became a distraction and he ignored it the way he was ignoring the scratchy blanket under him and the telltale squeak of the bunk's springs every time they moved.
"Okay, stop that for now. I need you to tell me something."
"What?"
"If I don't wait -- if I walk away, never visit, never write, never call, hook up with the first guy I see that I like in someplace far away -- what would you do?"
He felt every muscle in Jim's body clench and rode out the pain of three brutally fast, deep strokes, delivered with every ounce of strength Jim had. "I'd --I'd --" Jim turned his head away and he shuddered. "I don't know. Survive. Wait to get released. Come after you."
"Kill me? Hurt me? Punish me?" Blair demanded.
Jim eased nearly all the way out of him and then sank back in slowly enough that Blair's answering moan was one of pleasure. He'd hurt tomorrow, hell, for days, but he didn't care.
"No."
"Tell me."
"Beg you. Crawl." Jim was gasping out the words, his hips moving slowly, his face contorted. "Blair -- What do you want me to say? You know what I'd do."
"Anything it took to keep me."
"Anything it took," Jim confirmed.
"That still scares me."
"You think I don't know that?" Jim mouthed at Blair's nipple, sucking at the reddened, swollen skin. "Fuck, it still scares me."
"You wouldn't let me have my life back? Give me space? Trust that you'd get sent a replacement for me?" Blair wasn't sure why he was doing this to them both, but he had to know.
"I lost Incacha and it hurt like hell. It took a piece of me. I lose you for good, and it'll kill me," Jim said. "I can't -- I don't want that to happen."
"Why will it?" Blair whispered. "Why do you need me that much?"
Jim reared up, his arms straight, taking his weight, and stared down at him. "Because you're my partner. My shaman."
Blair shook his head. Words. Truths, yes, but not the right ones. "I need more than that from you. I know, but tonight, I want to hear it. Humor me."
"Because I love you." The words were reluctant, almost shamed.
"You've never said that before." Neither had Blair, but he didn't need to. Jim knew.
Jim sighed and settled back down, his hand cradling Blair's face. "You've never been about to leave me before."
"I'm not going to leave you now," Blair said. "I'm not going to be here," he slapped the bed, " but I'm going to be in here, right?" He slid his hand between them, his palm against Jim's heart. "God, listen to me get mushy…but I've gotten used to being the one who says everything you're thinking and won't say."
"You think I'm the romantic one?" Jim chuckled quietly. "Me? Chief, you're nuts."
"Yeah, whatever." Blair settled himself more comfortably and slapped Jim's ass. "We were doing something, remember? Faster. Harder. More. Give me something to remember when I'm jerking off thinking about you."
"Two years." Jim's voice cracked, the rhythm of his strokes unvarying, still perfectly placed, but too gentle to scratch Blair's itch tonight. "God, two fucking years."
"Twenty months," Blair corrected him firmly. It would have been longer than two years, but he'd deliberately fucked up a parole hearing and closed the gap a little.
Only once. Jim had freaked when he'd found out, gratitude and guilt clashing. He hadn't spoken to Blair for two days, hadn't touched him…
In the end, the self-sacrificial glow reduced to sullen embers, Blair, exasperated, had waited until lockdown and then leaned against the wall, got his dick out, and started to jerk off in Jim's line of sight.
Jim had made it until bare seconds before spunk boiled up and over Blair's fist, falling to his knees in front of Blair and sucking him dry, keeping his mouth on Blair until Blair had been whimpering, squirming, hard again.
They'd worked out other ways to deal with their differences after that.
"I'll see you every chance I get," Blair said.
Jim's hand caressed Blair's hair, cropped short now, but still curling wildly. Blair had snipped off a lock of it and left it hidden in the cell for Jim to find. Maybe it would help. Maybe the spunk-soaked piece of cloth wrapped around it would, too. He was guessing here. When Jim was released, Blair would have found out so much more, be so much better at taking care of his Sentinel… "I know you will, Blair."
"I'll write letters. You'd better fucking answer them."
"I will. I promise."
"I'll call you. Talk to you."
"I'll be here."
Blair could feel tears on his face, warm and wet, and saw Jim breathe in the scent of them, adding one more memory to those he was locking away.
"Tell me, dammit."
Jim kissed him, sweet and soft as he began to fuck Blair again with a rising urgency. "You know."
"Tell me!"
"I'll wait for you, Blair."
"Tell me again," he begged, the words mumbled, jumbled, his legs wrapping around Jim, his heels digging into Jim's ass.
"I love you," Jim said, this time without hesitation. "I'll wait. You're worth waiting for."
Faster, harder, yes, just like that -- Blair sobbed, his voice lost, words forgotten as Jim slammed home and froze, his body convulsing, his head thrown back, starkly beautiful in the cool, pale moonlight flooding the cell, both of them locked together, bound together, one.
When they were back in their cell, locked in by a scowling, silent guard, Jim began undressing, getting ready for bed, his movements methodical and controlled, almost in slow motion as if it was the only way he could keep his hands from shaking. Blair started to shiver, Jim's control robbing him of his own, teeth-chattering shudders that racked his body. Jim tossed his T-shirt aside and came close at once, his expression concerned, his arms reaching out to encircle him, hug him, but Blair warded him off with a snarl. "Don't fucking touch me!"
Jim held up his hands and stepped back, his face impassive now, his body tense. "Fine. No touching."
"Ever again," Blair said, biting the words out and trying not to bite his tongue at the same time. The air in the cell was sun-baked and stifling even this late at night, but he couldn't get warm.
Jim's skepticism about Blair's resolve came over loud and clear, but Blair ignored it, wrapping a blanket from his bed around him and pacing the cell as Jim gave him room.
"Why did you do it?" Blair asked eventually into the heavy, waiting silence. "Why did you do that to me?"
Jim ran his hand over his head and grimaced. "Look, we can talk if you like, but can you just -- can you let me hold you -- get the stink of him off you? Please? It's driving me crazy."
"What?" Blair gaped at him. "Everything that's just happened and you're getting pissy over the way I smell?"
The skin around Jim's mouth was white. "Yes. I'm not feeling very…stable right now and you're not helping." Blue eyes seared Blair, almost making him feel some heat. "You're supposed to help me, Chief."
"My name is Blair," Blair snapped. "Keep the pet names for when you're passing me around like a bottle of cheap booze."
Jim blinked, some of the tension visibly leaving him as his clenched jaw relaxed. "A nickname? That bugs you? You pick the strangest things to get mad about…"
Blair choked on hysterical laughter. "You think so? Want to know what's really gotten me mad?"
"No. I want to stop you shaking. I want to hold you. I want you naked and in my bed and I want to --"
"Fuck!" Blair whirled and slammed his palm against the cell wall, the impact jarring, the pain clean and his to own. "You want, your bed -- what about me? Huh? When do I get to have what I want? When do I get a say in where I sleep and who with?"
Jim materialized beside him and Blair let his hurt hand be taken, cradled against Jim's chest, because he'd gotten a glimpse of Jim's eyes and, yeah, the man was closer to the edge than Blair was, which was saying something.
"I stopped myself from killing a man I despise because you asked me to let him live," Jim said softly. "You had a say then. Now, it's my turn. I'm not going to force you to do anything, but I need your help here and if you want me on my knees begging for it --"
Nice picture -- in a nightmare world. Blair had once seen Sentinels as special; golden men, larger than life. They didn't kneel and beg; they protected people. Meeting one had taken the shine off his idealized picture and dirtied it up some, but if he were honest, he'd admit that his first thoughts hadn't been all that realistic. "Would you?"
"For you?" Jim nodded slowly. "Yeah. I would. I might have limits when it comes to what I'd do to keep you, but I don't know where they lie and I don't really want to find out. Put it this way; I'd endure everything you went through with King -- more -- just to stay close to you, yeah, even if it was you dishing it out, and never regret it, not once."
"I'd never ask you to do that," Blair whispered, his voice stripped of strength. Jim meant it, every word. Blair wasn't sure how he knew that, but he did. "I couldn't be like that with you. With anyone."
"I know," Jim murmured back, the quiet words creating a safe, private place for the two of them. He raised Blair's hand to his lips and kissed it, an unhurried, tender kiss that hurt more than hitting the wall had, because Blair couldn't block out kindness the way he had blocked out King's abuse. "This is good. This helps. Thank you."
"I swore you'd never touch me again," Blair said. Jim smiled and kissed Blair's wrist, just where the blood beat against the thin skin. "I wanted to kill you. Geld you."
Jim sucked in air and shook his head, still smiling. "Believe me, you'd have more fun with me intact."
Anger was slipping away from Blair like a dream at daybreak. "Are we ever going to have arguments that I can win?" he asked plaintively.
"You can win them all," Jim said. "I'll teach you every weakness I have."
"Right," Blair said, mirroring Jim's earlier skepticism. "Somehow I doubt that."
"I've got things to tell you,." Jim said. "We've got a lot to talk about -- starting with the way you hesitated when I told you to get your ass over to me." The smile had disappeared now; Jim looked annoyed.
"Hey!" Blair yanked his hand free and poked Jim's chest. "How about the way you made me -- when you said I'd never have to -- the way you --" Tears choked him suddenly, salt and snot running down the back of his throat as he sniffed hard and fuck it, he was shaking again. "I crawled --"
"Come here." Jim's chest made a crappy pillow. Too hard and the tears ran off it, but it was warm and smelled comfortingly familiar, which made no sense as Blair hadn't had time to get used to Jim yet. "I had to watch you do it. I know."
"Going to thank me for that, too?"
"No. That was you working with me. It's what we're supposed to do."
Blair shifted his head an inch to the left and set his teeth around one of Jim's nipples, catching at it roughly and making Jim yelp. "Fuck that."
"Blair --" The warning in Jim's voice was tinged with desperation. "I'm not in control right now after that fight and seeing you -- Don't --"
The lights went out with an abruptness Blair had never gotten used to, plunging them -- no, just him, he supposed -- into a darkness that would lift within a few minutes when his eyes adjusted, as the prison was never completely dark.
Jim's nipple was hard to bite; too much muscle around it. Blair moved up, licking fiercely at Jim's throat and then kissing it, a sucking bite of a kiss any vampire would be proud of. Jim groaned something that might have been a protest but sounded a lot like 'please'.
"Killer," Blair said, planting the words into the spit-slippery skin with a flick of his tongue. "Right?"
"I'd kill for you."
"Hard man," Blair continued, his hand going down, a lewd, low chuckle making it clear just what he meant, even before his fingers sought out the stiff poke of Jim's cock and freed it from his shorts. The shorts ended up on the floor a moment later, and then Jim was naked and Blair was clothed, the blanket slipping from his shoulders to pool on the floor.
"Hard for you," Jim murmured back at him, the words husky, thick, a growl. His hands made restless passes over Blair's back and ass, petting Blair roughly with a hungry urgency, trying to get to skin. Yeah, he really was close to losing it, wasn't he? Blair didn't care and he wasn't scared. He'd come too close to dying tonight to care about anything less than death and pushing Jim like this was about the only weapon he had. He wanted to make Jim break and be there to pick up the pieces. He needed to see Jim lose it, lose it all. His emotions and thoughts were chaotic, confused, but things had to balance between them. Jim had made him crawl and suck and smile at a face Blair hated and Blair didn't give a fuck that it'd saved them both when it had come so close to destroying him.
"Sentinel," Blair said as his fingers tightened around solid, hot flesh.
Jim was silent now. Quivering, rock-hard, yes, but silent.
"My Sentinel," Blair said finally, experimentally, wondering -- and felt the warm gush of come flow up and spurt out a moment later, the smell of it pungent and familiar, arousing Blair to the point where he had to bite down hard on his lip to keep himself from following suit.
"God," Jim moaned, and swayed, held in place by Blair's hands, his own gripping Blair's shoulders painfully tight. "God, Blair --"
Instinct took over, erasing Blair's shock that Jim had climaxed that fast. He hadn't done anything; just touched him, just --
Claimed him.
Oh, fuck. Blair rested his head against Jim's shoulder and then pulled Jim closer, heedless of come-spattered hands and clothing. Jim clung to him with bone-cracking strength and nuzzled Blair's neck, muttering something that Blair didn't try to decipher because he knew what it meant, no matter what language Jim used.
Yours.
***
Jim breathed in the welcome scent of his come, simple, known, and the roil of emotions pouring off Blair, which were less easy to identify but a huge improvement on the sour, filthy reek King had left smeared over Blair. Blair's anger and upset weren't pleasant -- Jim experienced them as an itch, a nagging sense of wrongness -- but there was nothing about Blair that Jim couldn't tolerate, nothing that could make him feel distaste or revulsion. Blair was too close for that to be possible; part of Jim, his flaws, weaknesses, all accepted without thought.
It was a difficult truth to grasp; Incacha had been patient with Jim's inability to accept it for many weeks before rolling his eyes and telling Jim bluntly that as far as he was concerned, Jim's shit didn't stink and he could go without bathing for weeks and still be welcome in Incacha's bed.
That acceptance went deeper than the physical, of course, but it got the message across, and Jim had eventually stopped worrying that Incacha endured what they did together in bed rather than enjoyed it, or resented the upheaval of his life and, by extension, Jim. It just didn't work like that; they were one at levels that went beyond any partnership Jim had ever experienced or observed.
Losing Incacha had left him like a bombed building, his strength and purpose shattered until all that remained was a jumbled heap of bricks that had once meant something.
Finding Blair was a chance at rebirth; Jim had lost too much to ever become the man Incacha had known again, but he could still become something new, fill the empty loneliness inside him with something other than self-loathing and apathy.
He understood all of Blair's misgivings and doubts, all of his anger. He doubted that he could be as patient with Blair as Incacha had been with him, but he could try…
His climax had slammed into him like a fist and held as much pain as pleasure because it fell so short of what he remembered it could be, but it had done its job and washed away some of the red from his vision. Holding Blair helped even more because he was aroused and that was distracting him from the questions Jim frankly didn't have time for right then. He wanted to make Blair come and then sleep with him.
It didn't seem like much to ask.
He weighed what he guessed Blair would want against a handful of practicalities and shrugged mentally. No condoms, no lube. The second didn't matter -- it might tomorrow, but right then the discomfort was a small price to pay for having Blair inside him. The first…well, he knew he was clean and if King had been careful, Blair was, too.
"Fuck me?" he asked, the words spoken into the damp tickle of Blair's hair. "Or let me suck you?"
Blair's body jerked, stiffening in shock. Jim felt his confusion without really understanding it; it wasn't that complicated a proposition, after all.
"What?"
"You heard me." Jim worked his way through the tangle of hair to Blair's ear and bit at the lobe, using a lot less force than Blair had used chewing on his nipple. Not that Jim had minded; the one time, curious, he'd let a girlfriend put clamps on his nipples he'd gone wild, loving the sharp, concentrated savagery of the pain and the lingering throb. He'd never tried them again, though; he'd shipped out to Peru right after and though Incacha had been willing to try just about anything Jim could dream up, he wasn't into damaging his Sentinel just so said Sentinel could get his rocks off and Jim had respected that.
Something told Jim that Blair wouldn't have quite as many scruples.
"Oh, man, you really don't want me doing that," Blair told him, his voice strained. "It's been a while -- years -- and I've learned a lot of bad habits. I could hurt you."
"I don't think so." Jim mapped the size of Blair's erection with a casually appreciative sweep of his fingers. Nice. "Though I'll be aching tomorrow if you really go to town, but I can take it."
"Ever been fucked dry and hard?" Blair said sourly. "Trust me, it won't be just tomorrow it hurts."
"Then let me blow you," Jim said, striving for patience. He wanted to seal the deal and the more Blair talked, the less horny he smelled.
Blair stepped back, shrugging out of Jim's grasp. "I don't know what you're trying to prove --"
Patience exhausted, Jim shoved Blair up against the wall beside them and dropped to his knees, crowding close and getting his mouth over the swell of Blair's cock. He bit at it through Blair's jeans, the open-mouthed bite a mother cat uses on a kitten's neck, and tasted his own come soaked into the fabric.
Then he knelt back, his hands on the wall on either side of Blair and looked up.
"Get your dick out," he suggested, his tongue flicking over his lips to both catch the acrid tang left there and get Blair's imagination revved up.
"Man, you're pushy," Blair muttered, his hands already busy. "Fine. Blow me. But you bite me and you lose teeth."
Jim cupped the tightening pouch of Blair's balls and jiggled them. "Guess you grew a pair."
That got him Blair's hands in his hair, painfully tight, and a rammed-in mouthful of cock a moment later. He choked, eyes watering, throat convulsing, and Blair eased back. "You're not very good at this, are you?"
Jim swiped at his drooling mouth and glared up at him. "I've never had any complaints, but most people use a little more --"
"Finesse?" Blair suggested tiredly. "Sorry. I'm used to getting my mouth fucked and like I said; bad habits."
"You want to make me take what you did? Go ahead. Hurt me. Use me. Bruise me, mark me; I don't care. If it helps you, take it all out on me."
"Oh God, don't! Don't let me go there --" Blair let go of Jim's hair and tried to push past him, but Jim blocked the attempt, caging Blair with his arms.
"Or let me show you how good it can be between us," he said with all the persuasion he could muster. He stropped his cheek caressingly against the shaft of Blair's cock, a hum of arousal thrumming in his throat. "Driving me crazy here, babe." He didn't talk much during sex usually, but Blair was pulling the words out of him, a litany of longing. "Let me suck you," he said and knew that he was begging, the way a man dying of thirst would plead for a sip of water. "I can take you deep; I wasn't ready, that's all. Come as fast as I did or let me make this last; your choice. Come in my mouth, on my face, I don't give a fuck, just let me do this for you." He paused, his breathing labored, his chest tight with need. "Please," he said softly. "Please, Blair."
This time, the hand cupped his head and drew him forward slowly. He closed his eyes to hold back the sting of tears it would have killed him to shed and licked the glossed-over head of Blair's cock, savoring the intimacy as much as the taste.
He heard Blair exhale, a soft rush of air that Jim felt against his face like the memory of a touch, and then he turned his attention to making Blair come his fucking brains out.
He wasn't sure he succeeded but it was good enough that he got an exhausted Blair curled up beside him for a few hours that night, even if he woke to find himself sleeping alone, his arm curved over an empty space.
It was enough. It was a start.
***
King was gone within the week, transferred away, a cracked eggshell of a man, his eyes blank and dazed. Blair wasn't sure how he felt about that. As revenge went, it was unsatisfying; King had lost his power and influence in a single crowded hour -- as well as his brother and the use of his hand for several months -- but it hadn't made Blair feel better.
Jim methodically beating seven shades of shit out of the two men who tried to take over King's position and assumed Blair came with the job made him feel resentfully safer, though.
He wanted to take care of himself; to start over and this time do it right, but that just wasn't an option now.
Sentinels didn't share, Sentinels didn't let their backups defend themselves, and Sentinels, apparently, were happy to provide blow jobs on demand or let their bodies be used as a great place to rub off on without ever asking for anything in return.
Oh, Jim came; came every time, with a gasped out grunt of pleasure that made Blair's balls tighten with lust, but Blair never touched him; he didn't need to. All Jim needed was for Blair to be there, close, preferably naked, and horny.
Blair felt like a centerfold.
He could have ended it with a touch because he knew damn well that it wasn't the way Jim wanted it, but a residual stubbornness and the annoyance he felt over Jim's smothering protectiveness kept him from giving in the whole way.
He'd been forced to accept the connection between them -- he wasn't sure how or when -- or why -- but he had, and he let Jim suck him off because the guy really liked doing it and Blair…didn't hate it, but he was damned if he was going to step into a dead man's shoes and be the love of Ellison's life.
Two years, three, and he was gone. Until then, Jim would be useful and, yeah, an improvement on King, Blair would admit that.
A month of never being touched unless he permitted it, a month of his own bunk to sprawl out on -- and he knew Jim hated him leaving his bunk, but God, sleeping alone was heaven and if he sometimes woke and missed the solid heat of Jim's body, well…
He remembered that he had a library book to return and ten minutes to do it in and headed back for his cell, his ass unpatted in the corridor, no whispered insults following him. Oh, brave new world…
The cell door was pushed closed, which it shouldn’t have been at this time of day. His steps slowed, dread rising to crowd his throat with sickness. King had closed the door like that when he couldn't wait for the night, shut it in the face of the world with an unthinking arrogance.
He shook himself. He wasn't behind that door, naked, shivering, hurt; he was out here, and if Jim was fighting off an attack -- unlikely because there wasn't much dislike of him, overt or covert, even from King's former friends -- he was doing it in total silence which was even less likely.
It took him three hesitant steps toward the door to think of another possibility; Jim was behind that door getting his rocks off with one of the many men who'd offered to take Blair's place.
Jealousy and sheer, raw-red possessiveness gripped and shook him, left his ears ringing and his heart pounding unsteadily. He could still hear, with a small part of him, that detached voice that King had never silenced, note dispassionately that claiming went both ways and that if this was how Jim had felt that night in the showers, King was the luckiest man alive to still be breathing, but mostly he just thought, 'mine!' with a savage simplicity.
He was saved from humiliating himself completely with a dramatic entrance through the door, fists flying, by the door opening and Brackett sauntering out, a satisfied smile broadening when he saw Blair.
Brackett opened his mouth to say something predictable and then visibly reconsidered, turned on his heel and walked away, moving just a little too quickly. Blair stared at his retreating back, nodded to himself the way a man did, job done, the movement taking an eternity to complete, and then walked into his cell.
Jim was sitting on the lower bunk, rinsing his mouth from a bottle of water Brackett must have left behind -- it was Evian -- and spitting into a metal mug. Red spit, blood drooling from a cut lip, but that wasn't all that was clouding the water. He glanced at Blair, but didn't speak.
"How many times?" Blair asked, his voice a tinny echo of the scream in his head.
Jim shrugged. "Who's counting? When he wants it, I deliver and take the consequences if he thinks he's given up too much." His gaze was direct but there was no accusation in it, just a weary resignation. "This time, I was trying too hard to make him forget that he enjoyed both of us at once."
"Because you don't share." It came out like an accusation, a flung stone.
"Because you wouldn't like it," Jim corrected him.
"Stop being so fucking noble!" Blair stalked across the room and snatched the mug from Jim's hand, sending it flying across the room, liquid splattering the floor and wall, the clang of metal on stone jarringly loud. Jim placed the bottle on the floor before Blair could grab that, too, and stood up, anger replacing apathy .
"It's not noble, it's what I am, you fucking moron." Jim stabbed his fingers against his chest. "Sentinel. Sentinel. You were going to look for one and you don't have a clue, you don't have a fucking clue what we are and what we can do, you know that?"
"Yes, I do," Blair said, stung and remembering the hours he'd spent reading that fucking book, memorizing it in places. He'd slept with it some nights, dammit. "Your senses are enhanced --"
"Yeah, they're enhanced." Jim's mouth folded in a grim, set line and he nodded his head jerkily. "Do you know by how much? How far I can see, how much I can zoom in on something? I can count the fuzz on a bee's ass from the other side of a football field if it stays still long enough; I can hear the warden talking to his dead son in his sleep if I try, and I can smell Carter's rancid fucking socks from here, and he's in D wing."
Blair swallowed, guilt flooding him. God, Jim was right on this count, at least; he had a Sentinel to study, a willing subject, right here, not in Peru, but in his cell, and what had he done about it? Not a damn thing. Not a single note made, or a test planned. Parameters. Variables. Limits. He'd done nothing.
And Jim had been quietly servicing Brackett to keep him off Blair's back and waiting for Blair to snap out of one monumental sulk…
He wanted to do something to make up for his neglect of his dream and, yeah, his Sentinel, he supposed, but he couldn't think of anything that would come close to being enough. Jim made it all a thousand times worse by taking a bottle of lube out of his pocket and tossing it over. Blair caught it automatically. New, the seal unbroken.
"Got it from Brackett," Jim said. "Better than flowers. Now you can fuck me. I know you want to." His lips twisted. "Guess my blow jobs aren't as good as I thought they were, but maybe you'll like my ass better."
Blair narrowed his eyes. "Don't push it," he said. "I'm feeling guilty as hell here, but if the way I come whimpering isn't enough of a hint that you're good on your knees, then I don't know what is."
Jim grunted, clearly not pacified. "Took you long enough to admit you like it."
A strained silence fell with Jim's mouth -- beautiful, that mouth, clear-cut, generous -- looking close to pouting, except that was something else Sentinels didn't do.
Okay, this was going to take something more than an apology…and when in doubt, attack.
"And as for the Sentinel thing…" Blair said, as if Jim's rant had only just been spoken.
"Yeah?"
"Everyone can smell Carter's socks," Blair said dismissively -- and waited, hoping that Jim would get it, would see the expectancy in his eyes, would play along.
One beat, two, and then Jim grinned and reached out to ruffle Blair's hair forgivingly.
Asshole. Blair tucked the lube in his pocket, a small weight, promising, tempting.
"Maybe you can fuck me," he said without thinking.
"You won't kiss me, won't touch me, won't treat me like I'm human, but you'll bend over for me?" Jim patted Blair's cheek and walked toward the door. "Chief, you're one messed up man. No."
Blair pursed his lips. So that was what Jim wanted? Well…okay.
A kiss. He could do that.
He turned his head and found himself alone, but that didn't matter, did it? Jim could hear him.
Softly, barely breathing the words, he said, "I'll kiss you. I'll touch you. Tonight."
The last word echoed, as if Jim had said it back to him.
***
"Tell me," Jim panted, driving into Blair's ass at just the perfect angle, just the perfect speed.
Blair moaned, luxurious, wanton, and raked his nails down Jim's back. He'd already left teeth marks and bruises scattered over Jim's body, but it wasn't enough. He wanted Jim marked for days, something to look at, something to touch as he jerked off.
"I'll wait. I'll wait for you -- Jim, God, Jim, now, now, now."
"You're still talking," Jim said and nipped at Blair's ear. Blair wasn't the only one who was leaving marks tonight. Their last night. "I want you past that before I let you come."
"Fuck you." His body was a twisted, snarled up knot of lust only a climax would unravel. Hours of this… Freezing when the guards had walked by, keeping their voices down… Hours of Jim mapping his body with meticulous, desperate care, as if the years together had been wiped away and he was starting over -- "Please, Jim. Please --"
"Tell me."
Blair shook his head in frustration, not denial. "I'll wait, I’ll wait," he chanted breathlessly. "Jim -- believe me, okay?"
"I want to," Jim said, the words muffled against Blair's hair. "You don't know what it's going to be like tomorrow watching you walk out of here. Going where I can't see you, hear you, touch you --"
"Shush, just -- don't. And yeah, I do."
Jim thrust inside him again, the joy gone, and Blair slid his hands down to still the next mechanical rock forward. His arousal became a distraction and he ignored it the way he was ignoring the scratchy blanket under him and the telltale squeak of the bunk's springs every time they moved.
"Okay, stop that for now. I need you to tell me something."
"What?"
"If I don't wait -- if I walk away, never visit, never write, never call, hook up with the first guy I see that I like in someplace far away -- what would you do?"
He felt every muscle in Jim's body clench and rode out the pain of three brutally fast, deep strokes, delivered with every ounce of strength Jim had. "I'd --I'd --" Jim turned his head away and he shuddered. "I don't know. Survive. Wait to get released. Come after you."
"Kill me? Hurt me? Punish me?" Blair demanded.
Jim eased nearly all the way out of him and then sank back in slowly enough that Blair's answering moan was one of pleasure. He'd hurt tomorrow, hell, for days, but he didn't care.
"No."
"Tell me."
"Beg you. Crawl." Jim was gasping out the words, his hips moving slowly, his face contorted. "Blair -- What do you want me to say? You know what I'd do."
"Anything it took to keep me."
"Anything it took," Jim confirmed.
"That still scares me."
"You think I don't know that?" Jim mouthed at Blair's nipple, sucking at the reddened, swollen skin. "Fuck, it still scares me."
"You wouldn't let me have my life back? Give me space? Trust that you'd get sent a replacement for me?" Blair wasn't sure why he was doing this to them both, but he had to know.
"I lost Incacha and it hurt like hell. It took a piece of me. I lose you for good, and it'll kill me," Jim said. "I can't -- I don't want that to happen."
"Why will it?" Blair whispered. "Why do you need me that much?"
Jim reared up, his arms straight, taking his weight, and stared down at him. "Because you're my partner. My shaman."
Blair shook his head. Words. Truths, yes, but not the right ones. "I need more than that from you. I know, but tonight, I want to hear it. Humor me."
"Because I love you." The words were reluctant, almost shamed.
"You've never said that before." Neither had Blair, but he didn't need to. Jim knew.
Jim sighed and settled back down, his hand cradling Blair's face. "You've never been about to leave me before."
"I'm not going to leave you now," Blair said. "I'm not going to be here," he slapped the bed, " but I'm going to be in here, right?" He slid his hand between them, his palm against Jim's heart. "God, listen to me get mushy…but I've gotten used to being the one who says everything you're thinking and won't say."
"You think I'm the romantic one?" Jim chuckled quietly. "Me? Chief, you're nuts."
"Yeah, whatever." Blair settled himself more comfortably and slapped Jim's ass. "We were doing something, remember? Faster. Harder. More. Give me something to remember when I'm jerking off thinking about you."
"Two years." Jim's voice cracked, the rhythm of his strokes unvarying, still perfectly placed, but too gentle to scratch Blair's itch tonight. "God, two fucking years."
"Twenty months," Blair corrected him firmly. It would have been longer than two years, but he'd deliberately fucked up a parole hearing and closed the gap a little.
Only once. Jim had freaked when he'd found out, gratitude and guilt clashing. He hadn't spoken to Blair for two days, hadn't touched him…
In the end, the self-sacrificial glow reduced to sullen embers, Blair, exasperated, had waited until lockdown and then leaned against the wall, got his dick out, and started to jerk off in Jim's line of sight.
Jim had made it until bare seconds before spunk boiled up and over Blair's fist, falling to his knees in front of Blair and sucking him dry, keeping his mouth on Blair until Blair had been whimpering, squirming, hard again.
They'd worked out other ways to deal with their differences after that.
"I'll see you every chance I get," Blair said.
Jim's hand caressed Blair's hair, cropped short now, but still curling wildly. Blair had snipped off a lock of it and left it hidden in the cell for Jim to find. Maybe it would help. Maybe the spunk-soaked piece of cloth wrapped around it would, too. He was guessing here. When Jim was released, Blair would have found out so much more, be so much better at taking care of his Sentinel… "I know you will, Blair."
"I'll write letters. You'd better fucking answer them."
"I will. I promise."
"I'll call you. Talk to you."
"I'll be here."
Blair could feel tears on his face, warm and wet, and saw Jim breathe in the scent of them, adding one more memory to those he was locking away.
"Tell me, dammit."
Jim kissed him, sweet and soft as he began to fuck Blair again with a rising urgency. "You know."
"Tell me!"
"I'll wait for you, Blair."
"Tell me again," he begged, the words mumbled, jumbled, his legs wrapping around Jim, his heels digging into Jim's ass.
"I love you," Jim said, this time without hesitation. "I'll wait. You're worth waiting for."
Faster, harder, yes, just like that -- Blair sobbed, his voice lost, words forgotten as Jim slammed home and froze, his body convulsing, his head thrown back, starkly beautiful in the cool, pale moonlight flooding the cell, both of them locked together, bound together, one.